When a computer freezes, why are we able to move the cursor around freely while everything else is frozen?

Question

When a computer freezes, why are we able to move the cursor around freely while everything else is frozen?

In: Technology

Answer 1

depends on the system. When a windows program that’s open in a window “stops responding”, it means that it has stopped translating, dispatching and receiving default [window messages](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/learnwin32/window-messages), such as “WM_PAINT” (redraw the window please), “WM_CLOSE” (close the window please) etc.

A lot of user interfaces work this way; with a constant “while loop” going on for as long as the UI element is alive; inside of that while loop the window’s message is received from the operating system or something else; it’s decoded and then something is done based on it.